ustvfandomcom-20200214-history
America's Funniest Home Videos
America's Funniest Home Videos (often simply abbreviated to AFHV or its on-air abbreviation AFV) is an American reality television program airing on ABC, which features humorous homemade videos that are submitted by viewers. The most common videos usually feature slapstick physical comedy arising from incidents, accidents, and mishaps. Other popular videos include humorous situations involving pets or children, while some are staged practical jokes. Originally airing as a special on November 26, 1989, it debuted as a regular weekly series on January 14, 1990. Initially, it was hosted by Bob Saget for the 1989 special and the first eight seasons of the series incarnation, then by John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes for its ninth and tenth seasons. After two years of being shown as occasional specials, hosted by various actors and comedians such as D.L. Hughley and Richard Kind, ABC brought the series back on Friday nights in the summer of 2001 with new host Tom Bergeron, who has since become the series' longest-serving host (as of the 2013-14 season, Bergeron has hosted AFHV for 14 seasons). Season 24 began on October 6, 2013. Synopsis Executive produced by Vin Di Bona, Todd Thicke and Michele Nasraway, it is currently the longest-running prime time entertainment program on ABC (both on the network's current schedule and dating back to ABC's incorporation as a television network in 1948). It is based on the Tokyo Broadcasting System program Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan, which featured a segment in which viewers were invited to send in video clips from their home movies; Vin Di Bona Productions pays a royalty fee to the Tokyo Broadcasting System for the use of the format. A more similar concept in that a whole 30 to 45-minute show consisted of nothing but short clips from amateur home videos with slapstick-like accidents presented by a host began broadcasting only two months after the start of Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan in Japan, under the title Pleiten, Pech und Pannen (lit., "Crashes, bad luck, and slip ups") in Germany in March 1986, that program lasted until 2003. Contestants can either send their videos in via mail on DVD or VHS, or, since 2008, upload them onto ABC's official website, abc.com. Due to its very low cost and universal appeal, the format has since been reproduced around the world and AFV-inspired television specials and series continue to emerge periodically in the United States. American television series inspired by AFV's format that are not related to the series itself include The Planet's Funniest Animals, The World's Funniest!, The World's Funniest Moments, Funniest Pets & People and It Only Hurts When I Laugh; however, most of the series inspired by AFV (with the minor exception of The Planet's Funniest Animals) have not matched the success of America's Funniest Home Videos and have not lasted as long. Several local television stations, even those not affiliated with ABC, also developed special funny home video segments in their newscasts during the early 1990s, inspired by the series. The majority of the video clips are short (5–30 seconds) and are mostly related to the host's monologues. Videos typically feature people and animals getting into humorous accidents caught on camera; while other themes include clever marriage proposals, people and animals displaying interesting talents (such as pets that sound like they speak certain words or phrases, or genius toddlers with the ability to name all of the U.S. Presidents), and practical jokes. A group of screeners view the submitted tapes, giving them a grade (on a scale of 1–10) based on that particular tape's humor. The videos deemed funniest by the screeners then go on to the show's producers and then is turned over to Di Bona and another producer for final approval. Home video material that involves staged accidents, or/and adults, children, or babies getting seriously injured or the abuse of animals are generally not accepted and will not appear on the show. Every week, three of the videos seen (which are among those included in the episode) are chosen by the producers and voted on by the studio audience. The winner wins US$10,000, and is in the running for the $100,000 prize at the end of a seven or ten show run, while the runner-up receives $3,000, and the third place video receives $2,000. Very early in the show's run, the second and third prizes respectively were a new TV set and VCR, and a new camcorder. On the initial hour-long special, the grand prize was $5,000 with second and third places winning a new camcorder; the producer picked the winner, with no audience voting. Periodically beginning with the Tom Bergeron run of the series, the grand prize winner at each season's final $100,000 contest will also win a free vacation package, supplied by either Adventures by Disney or Disney Vacation Club, in addition to the monetary prize. The program's studio segments are taped in front of a studio audience (although the specials that aired in 1999 and 2000 only featured pre-recorded audience responses); audience members are asked to dress in "business casual or nicer". Di Bona has produced two similar programs: the first, America's Funniest People, began in 1990 and lasted until 1994; the other, World's Funniest Videos, was a one-time special that aired in 1996. Show creator Vin Di Bona also created two series featuring home videos that are largely culled from those seen on AFHV and America's Funniest People: the first-run syndication series That's Funny, which ran from 2004 to 2006, and the Fox Family Channel series Show Me The Funny, which ran from 1998 to 2000. Many of the clips have been used internationally in various comedy compilation programs, with changes such as dubbing and subtitling. The title of the show is usually changed and the studio segments are omitted. As noted in the closing credits of each episode, most of the videos have been edited for length due to time constraints. In addition according to the contest plugs, family members (both immediate or relatives) of employees of Vin Di Bona Productions, ABC, Inc., its corporate parent The Walt Disney Company, and their related subsidiaries are ineligible for the show's contests and prizes. On October 3, 2010, beginning with the 21st season premiere, America's Funniest Home Videos began broadcasting in high definition. Many of the videos, which are largely shot using standard definition camcorders, began to be stretched horizontally to fit 16:9 screens. However, since the 2012–13 season, videos shot in 4:3 standard definition began to be pillarboxed (particularly videos that are recorded on mobile devices that are shot at a vertical angle that would not even fit the 4:3 safe area of many television sets entirely; since the conversion to HD, the series has featured advisories to viewers to tilt their mobile devices horizontally to when recording in order for their videos to fit 16:9 screens). Category:ABC